How can a loving God send people to hell?

This is one of those troubling questions that people of faith struggle with. It sounds like such a contradiction. We recoil from it. But in reality, it is a trick question. The real question is not how can a loving God send people to hell, but does God send people to hell?

Is that really God’s will for his creation?

The honest truth is that this is one of those questions that Christians (and others) have disagreed on. Some have answered ‘yes’ and some have answered ‘no’, depending on their understanding of God. As United Methodists we are part of a tradition that would give a resounding ‘no’ to this question. But there is a lot that lies behind this question and it is worth examining more closely.

The starting point is our understanding of God. Central to our Biblical faith is the affirmation that God’s most basic characteristic is that of love. Simply put, ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:7, 16). With scripture we affirm that God has created us, loves us, calls us into a relationship of faith, send his son to us and for us, and wants us to ‘dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever’. Nothing says this better than the familiar passage from John 3:16-17, For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

This affirmation lies at the very center of our faith. The whole purpose in Jesus’ coming was that we might ‘have live and have it in full’ (John 10:10). It is God’s will and God’s desire that we be in relationship with God, and that we have a full, rich life. That invitation lies behind the entire Biblical story, from Genesis to Revelation.

But as clear as this is, it is also clear from the Biblical that God gives us a choice. God invites us into relationship, God does not force that relationship on us. We are not puppets. God has created us in such a way that we have the capacity to reject or accept that offer. This is what is meant by ‘free will’.

We are called to love God, to be in relationship with our creator. But a relationship takes two. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, we are saved ‘by grace, through faith’ (Ephesians 2:8). We are saved, have a relationship with God, through God’s act of loving grace. God reaches out to us. But salvation requires our response to God’s offer. We must respond to God through faith.

God remains constant, desiring what is best for us. That never changes. The issue is whether we respond to that invitation. It is possible to reject God’s offer, and to reject it persistently and eternally. And, as a result, to be cut off from God. The Bible is very clear that ‘perishing’ is a possibility. This separation from God is the idea behind perishing and the central idea behind the concept of hell. To speak of hell is to speak of being cut off from God.

Over the centuries various authors and artists have described this being cut off from God in a variety of ways and with a variety of ways. Among these are the language of ‘damnation’ and of ‘hell’. In the New Testament used the term for the garbage dump outside Jesusalem. This garbage dump was constantly burning – a vivid image. Over time the concept of hell became more elaborate and more graphic. In the middle ages the focus was on punishment and ‘the fires of hell’. This was depicted in the most graphic way possible.

The Bible does not use any one metaphor or image. Rather there are a variety of images. Hell is only one of them. Some have understood hell in a very literal sense as a place. Others have understood it in a more symbolic or metaphorical sense. But here is the key point: whatever our understanding of hell, perishing, or damnation, the Bible is clear this is not something God does to us. Hell, however understood, is something we do to ourselves. We cut ourselves from God. We are the ones who separate ourselves from God and deny the goodness God wills for us.

This affirmation lies at the center of the Biblical narrative: God creates us. God call’s us into relationship. We have the capacity to accept or reject this offer. And we suffer the consequences of our response. We are either in relationship with God (saved, in heaven). Or we cut ourselves off from God (damned, in hell).

But if this is true, then why do some people believe that God sends people to hell?

The main reason is that there is another tradition within the Christian faith that rather than focusing on God’s character as a loving God, focuses more on God being all powerful and all knowing.

The view is known as Calvinism and holds that since God is all powerful, things cannot be other than want God wills them to be. And since God is all knowing, things cannot be other than what God knows them to be. This means that whether a person accepts or rejects God’s invitation to relationship is predetermined, or predestined.

In its extreme form, this view asserts that what God actually wills is what actually happens. And since some accept God and some reject God, this is all part of God’s will. God willed before eternity that some would be saved and that some would be damned. This is known as double predestination, double destination.

Jacob Arminius, a Dutch Calvinist, believed that this turned God into a monster. And though a Calvinist himself, he felt that the extreme Calvinist view was not Biblical. He believed that God would not do anything that ran counter to God’s nature as a God of love. This is the view held by the vast majority of Christians throughout the ages. Within Protestantism this belief became known as Arminianism.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was Arminian in belief, and he believed in single predestination, double destination: that God wills the salvation of all, but that because of free will some accept and some reject that offer, some are saved and some are not. Those who reject God’s offer are cut off from God, not by God’s will, but by their own choice, and therefore are ‘damned’ or are in ‘hell’.

So, does a loving God really send people to hell?

Methodism stands with the majority of Christians throughout the ages and across denominational lines in giving a resounding ‘no’. That is incompatible with the Biblical witness and the Biblical understanding of God. However, ‘perishing’ is all too real a possibility. The God of the Bible puts the ball in our court. This is why Paul can say to the Philippians, ‘work out your own salvation with fear and trembling’ (Philippians 2:12).

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